December 21, 2016 AT 11:00 am

Musical, Light-Up Sweater Decal #WearableWednesday

I recently held a workshop to teach students about e-textiles, and so I was looking for a cheap way to allow learners to make something that’s programmable, and that lights up and plays music. The instructions for the participants had to be easy to follow as well. I eventually came up with the idea of sewing a circuit onto a felt patch using a LilyTwinkle. Based on the ATTiny, the LilyTwinkle is a fraction of a cost of the LilyPad Arduino and can still provide good entertainment. The felt patch can be used as an applique onto any wearable you want. You can sew, hot-glue, or velcro it onto a sweater or pillow.

Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, or even use Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for MakeCode, CircuitPython, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.